Good News, Potty Mouths — Cursing Means You’re Smart

A new study by Scientific American has found that people who curse a lot tend to have a bigger vocabulary, even though we may assume the list of words they know is merely limited to the four-letter variety.

Taboo words hold a particular purpose in our lexicon that other words cannot as effectively accomplish: to deliver intense, succinct and directed emotional expression. So, those who swear frequently might just be more sophisticated in the linguistic resources they can draw from in order to make their point.

How exactly did the researchers come to this conclusion? Participants in a study were given what's called the Controlled Word Association Test and had to relay every dirty word they could for one minute. Those who excelled at dropping F-bombs and other words that will get your mouth washed out with soap also scored well in verbal fluency.